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Nshima & Curry

Melvin's  Blog

Nshima & Curry

ADDRESSING THE GROWING STUDENT BODY

"Good evening and welcome to the first monthly meeting of
the Indian Students Association of Purdue University. My
name is Mohan Bhatt and I will serve as president during
this academic year, thanks to the powerful coalition of
engineering and computer science students. For students
in other fields, I'd like to make this promise: I will try
my best to satisfy both of you.

I'm determined to fulfill all my campaign promises -- I've
already asked the Director of Food Services to consider
changing the cafeteria menus slightly, replacing dinner
rolls with chapatis. He wants to please the Hispanic
students, too, so I've suggested that he puts two signs over
the same item, one that says 'chapatis' in Hindi, the other
'tortillas' in Spanish.

I reminded him that the number of Indian students has more
than doubled since last year. That's why we had to move our
meetings from the student union building to the football
stadium. I apologize to those of you who still can't find a
seat. Please feel free to squat in the aisles. Just don't
get in the way of the samosa vendors.

Such overcrowding is being felt all over America. The number
of new Indian students has almost doubled in the last five
years. In fact, a record 66,836 students came from India in
2001, allowing us to finally beat China in something. And
even more significant, we've helped reduce the population of
our motherland. What better way to show our patriotism.

But as you know, Purdue and other universities are largely
unprepared for the influx of Indians. Just look at the
movies being shown on campus and you will see that not a
single one features Aishwarya Rai. The local video stores
are no better: if you want to see an Indian movie, you'll
have to watch 'Gandhi.' I've already seen it 15 times, and I
still don't understand why they couldn't let the Mahatma do
a little singing and dancing.

While I'm on the subject of entertainment, you may have
noticed that cable TV on campus is sorely lacking. I missed
the entire Test series against England. No highlights on
ESPN or anything. But I do have some good news for you: Some
of our computer science students have reprogrammed the TV
receiver in the student lounge. It now picks up Zee TV -- as
long as Rajiv Gupta attaches his spectacles to the antenna.
Apparently they are special specs, available only in
Kolkata, but anyone who wants to borrow them from Rajiv can
do so for $9.99 an hour.

We are also trying to address another important issue: we've
learned that Purdue now has almost 50 students named Sanjay
Patel. This can be rather confusing. Just last week, one
Sanjay Patel wrote a bad check and the police arrested five
others. The students are really upset and want me to solve
this problem. If I don't, they're threatening to form their
own group, the Sanjay Patel Association.

Thankfully, I've already found a solution. Every Sanjay
Patel has been randomly assigned an American first name
beginning with 'S.' Your new name will be emailed to you in
a few days. I apologize in advance to Sinbad Patel and Santa
Patel."

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